Organizations often strive to reduce power consumption for a variety of reasons such as, for example, cost reduction. One of the primary methodologies of reducing power consumption is reducing the amount of time that network devices, such as, for example, servers, desktop computers, laptops, and printers, are fully powered on. However, to accommodate business needs, organizations often prefer that network devices be accessible at any time. For example, an employee at home may need to remotely access a computer within an organization's network to handle an emergency during non-regular business hours.
A Wake-On-LAN (WOL) system allows for network devices, such as servers, laptops, desktop computers, and printers, to be accessible even if in power-off sleep states. A network device that is configured to work in a WOL system may be turned on or woken up after receiving a WOL command. For example, a WOL command, commonly known as a “magic packet,” may be broadcast by a requesting network device over the data link layer of a network. The magic packet may contain the MAC address of the target network device to be woken up or turned on. The network card of a network device configured to work in a WOL system may receive power even if the network device is in a power-off or sleep state. The network card of the target network device, after detecting a magic packet containing the target nets perk device's MAC address, may cause the target network device to turn on or wake up.
However, many organizations have networks containing a plurality of sub-networks (“subnets”) and/or virtual local area networks (“VLANs”). While a magic packet may be broadcast over the data link layer of a given subnet or VLAN, such broadcasts cannot typically be made across different subnets or VLANs. That is, broadcasts over the data link layer of a given subnet or VLAN do not typically reach other subnets or VLANs.
Some organizations may modify their network configuration to allow for WOL commands to be sent between subnets and/or VLANs. For example, a network may be configured such that WOL commands are sent between subnets and/or VLANs over the network layer of a network and then broadcast within subnets and/or VLANs over the data link layer of respective subnets and/or VLANs. However, such network configurations may often be exploited by external security threats, such as, for example, a hacker. In addition, such WOL systems often require increased network maintenance, requiring, for example, the settings of routers in the network to be modified. Many organizations having networks with subnets and/or VLANs find that the benefits of a WOL system do not outweigh the increased security risks and network maintenance associated with such a network configuration.
Moreover, typical WOL systems only be configured to turn on or wake up a network device in response to a user request. That is, typical WOL systems do not turn on or wake up a network device in the absence of a user request. Thus, accessing resources of a turned-off or sleeping network device in existing WOL systems can be complicated and time-consuming.
Improvements in WOL systems, including WOL systems implemented in networks having subnets and/or VLANs, are desirable.